I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I like sports movies. Maybe it’s because I’m adopted. Maybe it’s because the subject of class and racial divides is increasingly on my radar these days for many reasons. Whatever the cause, I knew that, before I left for my teaching trip overseas, I needed to see this movie. So tonight I did. Here’s why it’s high on my list:
1. I like that Hollywood portrait a southern Christian Republican family in a positive light. I’ve grown accustomed to the mockery of that demographic, but not this time.
2. Long after the movie’s ended, I’m still thinking about how actions seem so vastly more important than ideology. I’ll be blunt in saying that I have a tolerance limit for esoteric discussions about Calvinism and Arminianism, Republicanism and Socialism, er, and Democratics. And while I vote independent, and believe in election, free-will, and eternal security, I’m proud to say that I have heroes who are Calvinists and heroes who aren’t. They’re heroes because they lived well – you know, loving their enemies without getting violent, serving the poorest of the poor, giving away millions of dollars, that kind of thing. That stuff, done is Jesus name, is what matters. This movie shatters our notions that some ‘party’ has the moral high ground.
3. I’m reminded that our calling to reach across the chasm of social and racial divides is a central theme in the outworking of the gospel, and I left the the theater thinking about what this means in my life.
4. It’s about the power of family and, for those of us privileged to be adopted into strong families, a reminder that we’ve been the recipients of a special kind of love.
I hope you’ll take a few hours and invest them in this movie over the weekend. I’m guessing it might be a bit more thought provoking than Twilight, but I’ll miss that one, so I could be wrong.